


on paper, on skin; we leave our mark

by spideywhiteys



Series: 365 Days of Naruto AUs [28]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cute Ending, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Naruto POV, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, it's set in the canon world though, kind of ambiguous too, naruto trying to learn seals, tenten trying to teach naruto fuuinjutsu, wish her luck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29050122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideywhiteys/pseuds/spideywhiteys
Summary: Despite desperately searching, Naruto has yet to find his soulmate. So of course it's when he stops looking that she appears, having been close enough to touch this whole time. Maybe there is something true about fate, because they only come together when the dust settles.
Relationships: Tenten/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: 365 Days of Naruto AUs [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086938
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	on paper, on skin; we leave our mark

**Author's Note:**

> Day 28: Soulmate AU / Tenten + Naruto

Naruto is twelve and he has no soulmate.

His skin remains bare of marks, no matter how many people he bumps or brushes — and maybe that’s it. No one wants to touch him at all, so his opportunities are far and few between. He’s desperate for it.

Desperate for someone to accept him, every part of him. Desperate to have love where none can be found. He thinks he has enough love for a village. Surely someone can spare some of their own? 

Though, it’s not like he knows what  _ love  _ feels like. He watches the careful touches between parent and child, the ease between friends, the tenderness between lovers. It’s so hard to distinguish between them when he doesn’t know what they feel like, when he has to claw and scream for just a glance. 

And those glances are usually laced with apathy or hatred, depending on the person. He knows those emotions like people know the smell of home. The way it feels, the way it looks, the way it sounds. Love must be the opposite of hate, he thinks. 

He keeps that in mind when he dreams.

When he gets his team, he already knows that no one in his class belongs to him — he belongs to none of them. Not even Sakura-chan, who squeals and cries when brilliant, beautiful red and navy twine around her shoulder because she is Sasuke’s and Sasuke is hers. Sasuke, who acts like he has no one and strains the bond between his soulmate — Naruto can’t understand it, the Uchiha has more than him, shouldn’t he be happy? Naruto just wants one person. He’d be happy with that.

So he keeps his hands out and wanders blind into everything and everyone. 

Kakashi lets him take his wrist and is so quiet and gentle when he removes his fingers, and Naruto thinks that maybe it’s okay if Team Seven is just that. None of them belong to him the way a soulmate does, but maybe they belong to him in a different way.

Naruto is still learning about love, after all. 

* * *

Naruto turns sixteen and doesn’t think about soulmates as much. He has friends now, has bonds and teachers and those watching his back, always ready to catch him. When he’d been young, he’d thought maybe someone like Sakura, Shikamaru or Kiba would be fine as soulmates. He liked them all in different ways; thought Sakura was pretty, Shikamaru reliable, Kiba funny — and they liked him back in different ways. Maybe he would have been happy with them as soulmates, but he’s learnt that he loves them just as easily when they’re just friends.

(Twelve had been disappointing when he’d found Gaara and thought that a boy like that, so  _ like _ Naruto, must be his soulmate — and he was wrong.)

(Thirteen had been disappointing when he’d left the village with Jiraiya and spent the next three years finding himself rather than his other half.)

(Sixteen had been realizing that finding himself wasn’t as disappointing as he’d originally assumed.)

Naruto doesn’t think about soulmates as much, but the thought is always lurking in the corners of his mind. Quite, unsuspecting thoughts. The kind you get when you pass someone on the street and allow yourself to wonder about who they are and the life they lead. Naruto wonders a lot, but doesn’t let himself drown in it.

Sai wears gloves, but his fingertips are bare and the first time they brush the slightest bit of Naruto’s bare flesh, nothing happens and neither notice, because Naruto is too busy screaming and Sai is only a puppet with painted smiles.

They aren’t soulmates, but Sai becomes someone important and Naruto would have it no other way. He’s glad when months down the line he sees purple flung across paper white skin in the shape of a wild watercolor bouquet. Ino’s arm looks dipped in ink. Sai doesn’t know how to smile for others just yet, but Naruto thinks that those two will have no problems at all.

(Not like Sakura and Sasuke.)

So he’s seventeen and there’s a war and Naruto is not alone but he still feels that way, deep down. His friends have paired off, almost every single one of them, and he feels like he’s wading through quicksand while they sprint ahead. Not in just the soulmate department, but in other things as well. Miniscule things that make up a life. He’s filled with power but he’s still a genin. He’s never had parties or gone to the movies with a friend on a day off. He doesn’t know what food made by a friend or a family member tastes like, but that part is okay, because he has the taste of store-bought popsicles instead.

Naruto doesn’t know about love between soulmates, but he knows about loving a friend, loving a parent. His mom and dad and pervy sage, all his graduated classmates and a plethora of others spanning the nations — Naruto’s always had enough love to hold a village, now he’s seventeen and he has enough love to hold the world. 

(But it still feels like he has no one to share it with.)

* * *

Tenten is quiet but strong after the funeral. He sees her expression and can’t decide between serenity and exhaustion. Her arms are bare of marks, but Naruto knows  _ they  _ were close enough that everyone thought them soulmates anyway. 

Team Gai is the unluckiest of the Konoha 12 teams, but they are also lucky in comparison to the damage wrought across the shinobi population. He does not whisper apologies into her ear because they don’t mean anything when all is said and done. She would not hear them anyway.

Hinata cries silently at his side, and Naruto turns to look at a two dimensional photo of a genius with wings.

* * *

“Seals?” She asks, still exhausted, a weariness that may never go away. “I can help, sure. But are you sure you’ll be able to handle it on top of all the other work you have, Hokage-to-be?”

Naruto chuckles bashfully at her tease. “Aw, that’s not for years to come, ya know!” He corrects, though his eyes already sparkle with anticipation. It’s not a burning desire anymore, though. He’s already gotten what he really wanted. “My parents were really good at it, so…”

Tenten smiles now, eyes creasing as she leans against the counter of her little weapons shop. He looks back at her, an open book, an empty sleeve dangling like an elephant in the silence. Seals require precision and patience, and he rarely has either, nor does he have the hand he used to write with.

“I suppose I can give you some reading materials to start.” She relents.

* * *

It’s the  _ patience _ part that really gets him in the end. Naruto has always been the one to jump in head first. He learns from physical experience and finds it difficult to sit still in a stuffy room with his nose in a book. His mind wanders too much when it’s silent, and it ends up increasingly difficult to focus on what he’s supposed to be reading.

Which leads him here, one arm short of any writing skill and yet determinedly trying to scrawl out a kanji with his left. It barely looks like a character at all, more a blob than anything. As a shinobi, he’s mostly ambidextrous with weaponry and jutsu, but most can’t help but favor a side. It’s just how brains worked.

(According to Sakura.)

He’d charged a rasengan with his right, so now he has a pinned sleeve and no limb.

Tenten hovers rather anxiously, dark lashes fluttering over chocolate eyes. She worries her lip between her teeth and turns it pink with the pressure. Naruto’s tenacity is familiar to her, though far less exhausting than Gai and Lee’s.

“I think I almost got it.” He says.

“Maybe in another century.”

Naruto laughs rather sheepishly, looking down at his mess. “But it looks more like a kanji this time, right? I just can’t get this last part to  _ work _ —”

He scowls down at the scroll, trying to force his fingers to accurately copy the lines of a smoke bomb — with chakra-less ink, of course. He’s practicing, not looking to kill them both.

Tenten begins to wiggle with increasing agitation as Naruto butchers the seal with a wobbly hand, her distress almost as palpable as the scent of steel-cleaner and soap clinging to her skin, or the aloe and melon shampoo.

“We should really hold off until you get your arm back, Naruto.”

“I’m getting it, I’m getting it!”

“You’re obviously not! You couldn’t even  _ write _ with that hand before!”

He pouts without meaning, like a particularly offended chipmunk. “I just need to keep going at it.”

He messes up another line. 

Tenten throws her hands up.

“No, like this!” She huffs, fond even as her eyes roll. Her hand bumps his own to take the brush from his fingers.

A splash of orange blooms, her flesh a canvas. It winds around her wrist, up and up and up, caressing her elbow. They stare at it for a moment, both with blank stares and uncomprehending minds. His own fingers become inked in maroons, swirling patterns to match the new tattoos on Tenten’s skin. 

“Oh.” She breathes out, the brush falling to clatter against the scroll.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow / Support me on [Tumblr](https://spideyfoof.tumblr.com/) and let me know if you'd like to see more of this AU!


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